Child With Special Needs : Letters and Essays on Curative Education

A collection of Karl Konig's letters and essays in which he considers and discusses the fundamentals of special needs education.

Karl König, the founder of Camphill, was a prolific lecturer and writer on a wide range of subjects from anthroposophy and Christology through social questions and curative education to science and history.

In this remarkable collection of Karl König's letters and essays, König considers and discusses the fundamentals of special needs education.

He shows that there are three core aspects to a successful holistic education and healing approach: firstly, a positive social environment, which in the context of Camphill is achieved through small family units of carers and children; secondly, that carers' work is based on an insightful understanding of the nature and potential of each individual child and disability; and thirdly that medical treatment is imbued with courage to keep believing that the impossible is possible.

Karl Konig (1902-66) was well-known as a physician, author and lecturer. He began his work at the Institute of Embryology at the University of Vienna. In 1940 he founded the Camphill Movement in Scotland. Based on the educational ideas of Rudolf Steiner, the special education schools for children and villages for adults with special needs are now established all over Britain and Europe, North America and Southern Africa.